<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>world away by nonbinarywithaknife (littleboxes)</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30031437">world away</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleboxes/pseuds/nonbinarywithaknife'>nonbinarywithaknife (littleboxes)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>dimension 20 [85]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dimension 20 (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Campaign 05: A Crown of Candy, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Drabble, F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 00:08:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>484</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30031437</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleboxes/pseuds/nonbinarywithaknife</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Donetta sees the end coming.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Calroy Cruller/Donetta Cruller</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>dimension 20 [85]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706107</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Dimension 20 Alphabet 2021</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>world away</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Donetta goes to her husband's funeral-</p><p>
  <em>Her husband will have no funeral. His broken body will be burned alongside the rest.</em>
</p><p>-she will be wearing white.</p><p>When Donetta goes to her husband's funeral and stares at his body lying in the casket-</p><p>
  <em>She will hear the news of the traitor Lord's death days after it happens. She will learn her husband's fate from the mouth of a messenger whose voice is shaking at the witnessing of such change.</em>
</p><p>-he will be wearing a fine vest. Not his finest, because he has long outgrown the coltish frame his finest vest was tailored for, but a fine vest, fit to adorn him at his last.</p><p>When Donetta goes to her husband's funeral he will be mourned, and beloved by many, and hated by many more, and all of those people will come to weep at his grave, and simper at her feet-</p><p>
  <em>He will be hated and despised and history's villain. She will be stripped of her titles but left to her estate in Muffinfield, alone. They can prove nothing.<br/>
</em>
</p><p>-and she alone will remain.</p><p>When her husband dies-</p><p>
  <em>She sits at her desk and listens to him rave and wonders when brilliance became raving. His eyes are bright. His hair, usually so perfectly coiffed, falls loose, and he doesn't notice. She sits and looks at him carefully, and is disgusted at what he's become. What is this pathetic remnant of the sweet-sharp blade-edge of a boy she married?</em>
</p><p>-and he will die-</p><p>
  <em>I will be heading away soon, she says, to Muffinfield. Our foundations must be secured as your deal with the Ceresians moves forward.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Calroy is holding a dagger in his hand. Beloved? she asks, and he looks up only after a few more seconds of staring. Of course, my darling, he says, smiling, and it is a twisted thing, like cracked stained glass straining to hold together as it's warped by the heat. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>I trust you to handle it, he says, and his voice is wistful. She knows whose back he is seeing it plunge into. She takes servants with her when she leaves. Only her most loyal. Calroy has never been the only one to catch their eyes.</em>
</p><p>-because he aches for the kiss of the blade and the blood on his tongue and he is <em>full</em> of it, the ache, and he aches and claws and <em>burns </em>and one day, he is going to burn himself out; when he dies it will be a supernova.</p><p>When her husband dies, Donetta will stand, and she will watch the bright burning star she married collapse under the weight of his want. The light of his death throes will wash over her face and cast her more beautifully than she has ever been. His ashes will fall to the wind and they will catch on her.</p><p>(Donetta was never going to die first.)</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>